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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Sometimes over at the Diva, Laura throws us a challenge that is REALLY a challenge for me. This week the challenge is to use the tangle Betweed in a monotangle. Meaning, use only the tangle Betweed in your tile. This tangle is a challenge for me because it feels awkward to me as I make the strokes. Well, it does in the "traditional" way of creating it. I am much better at it when filling in a line or section but trying to do it in a circle really changes the feel of creating it. Why? I have no idea. My brain, sometimes she sees things and sometimes she don't. Anyway, as I contemplated even participating this week, I thought to myself that there is a reason it's called a challenge so suck it up and do it!

BeTreed (see what I did there?)

At first I tried to force Betweed into a tree shape. I had checked out a few of the wonderful entries this week and saw a lot of Halloween shapes so I wanted to try something different. I thought that if I could get a tree to work, maybe I could make it into a card for the holidays. Yeah, that didn't work out so well. It wasn't terrible, but not so good either. I didn't even finish the tile. I decided to move onto a new idea. But what?

In the last few days I have been using some of the Sakura Gelly Roll pens that I have collected as accents in my inktober pieces. I bought some of the glaze pens a while back. At the time I had an idea to use the black glaze on black paper and see how that looked. Like so many of my ideas however, I never got far. With the idea of using Betweed in the round, I pulled out my glaze pens, a square of black paper and a circle to trace, and I gave things a go.

Black on Black

I think that part of where Betweed hangs me up is the little spot of shadow. I always make my lines and then go back to add a shadow spot. This time using the glaze pen I tried something different. The ink in the pens really flows and will puddle on you quite easily. With that in mind, I started each line with a small circle and then made the line. If the pen is going to puddle on you, why not use it to your advantage? I was so excited that not only did the black on black stand out - the glaze ink has a nice shine to it - but the tangle turned out pretty well too. The scan has the paper more gray than black but it is still a good image of the tile. Since the line of the pen is "fat", I did these on a 5" square. I debated trying to shade this but I like it without shade so I left it alone. Once this one was finished, I was so excited by it I pulled out the rest of the set, matching colored paper and DID ALL THE COLORS! There is a clear glaze that I tried on a white paper but it REALLY didn't show up. For the white then, I used a Gelly roll glitter pen. After I got all of the colors done, I realized that I had 9 tiles so I have put them together in an ensemble. I think that I will put them in their own 5" frames and hang them in one big square on the wall. A few of the colors didn't scan so well. The tone on tone was hard for my scanner to see, that or maybe the shine of the ink threw it off a bit, but I think that you can get the idea.

Sorry that I made you get through all this rambling to get to the finish. :) Thanks for stopping by and for all of your lovely comments. Your support is invaluable to me.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Over at the Diva's challenge, Laura is honoring her Grandmother who had breast cancer. The challenge is to use pink to honor someone you know that has/had breast cancer. I did zentangle inspired art to honor Laura's Grandmother, my Godmother, and my friend who all battled breast cancer and for my Aunt who had cancer but is luckily now cancer free.

While it didn't scan really well, the pink here has a little shimmer to it. I started by watercoloring the background and using a dip pen and india ink, drew my garden over the top. I used variations of Diva's Dance and Arc flower and the top flower is inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I think that someone has already done a step out for a pattern like it but I am not sure. I was going to shade with my prismacolor markers here but the paint really stopped that from happening. I'm not sure why, maybe the paint and the alcohol? but as I started, the marker picked up the pink as I went and was not doing nice things. So, I stopped and made a light wash with the india ink and used a small brush to shade. The outside shading is the marker.

I like the whimsy of the piece and even the pink (a color that I don't usually embrace). This is also doing double duty for my inktober drawing for today. Not too bad for a morning's work.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the wonderful comments each week. I appreciate them all, I just don't usually have time to go back and comment to everyone individually. Have a wonderful week!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A new month brings a new tangle in the spotlight over at I Am the Diva. This time the tangle is Yuma by Tina. I like this tangle but my version needs more practice. When using this tangle in the past, I have started out not liking the results but by the end, I like it a lot.

For this week's challenge, I decided to use a black zentangle tile. As I have been using a dip pen lately, and have some white speedball ink, I used those to draw. The results were mixed. I have had issues using this ink before. I haven't figured out if it is me or the ink yet (me I think) but it doesn't want to work well with the nibs that I have used. Not to worry, I will keep at it. My results are:

For the tile I tried the original version of the tangle. I also tried my hand at Onion Skins, another new tangle I haven't tried. I enjoyed it but it also needs a little work on my end. I started to "shade" with a white charcoal pencil but changed my mind and just stopped. To fill in, I used a small brush as the pen wasn't cooperating. So, this tile, not my best but I learned doing it.
I have used Yuma once before a few weeks back. I gave it a try when making a pin and experimenting with a new Shrinky Dink film. I used a black and pink sharpie to draw and used a Sakura gold marker to fill in the seed shapes. I felt a little lost as I was going but by the end I liked how it came out.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to those who celebrated in Canada. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving here in the US. My family will be here to visit and I am excited to see them.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

I believe in love. Love drives all of us crazy. Do we have it? Can we get it? Do I deserve it? For some finding the person who means the most to you in the world is a lifelong search while for others love seems to happen quickly. In a world where there is more than enough hate and animosity to go around, I support love where it is found and that includes love between people of the LGBT community. This week in the US, the Supreme Court declined to rule on cases where same sex marriage. While this doesn't give a clear and final ruling on the issue in the United States, it to open the door for each state to decide. I am happy that the state I live in, Delaware, allows same sex marriage. I have several gay and lesbian friends and love them with all my heart. Their families are no different than my own and I am proud to be included in their lives.

Why is she going on about this you may ask? Well, I'll tell you. This week Laura over at The Diva's challenge, accepted a challenge from a young man named Daniel, who at 12, is already an outspoken supporter of the LGBT community. He thought that a challenge in support of National Coming Out Day would be a good idea and I do too. Congratulations to Daniel for putting out the challenge and to Laura for hosting what can be a controversial issue. Thank you both for this wonderful idea. It has been a great challenge for me.

Love is Love

I started this challenge with the center design of zinger. Zinger is a new tangle for me and I have really fallen in love with it making it in the round like this. I have done it several times on the Shrink Art Necklaces that I make and on ornaments as well. The black and white section is a variation of several different tangles (H2O Lilly and Mathura for example) but is kept very plain and simple. I wanted the section to add interest but not overwhelm the piece by adding too much pattern or color. The outer layer is Wud. I love the way the pattern looks in black and white but after I drew it in, I decided to color it like a rainbow. ROY G BIV is my new BFF. Hee Hee! I used Sharpie markers for the center and a Sharpie Pen for the drawing on this one. I didn't have a rainbow of microns so I broke into the sharpies. I drew this on bristol board as well. The colors were added to Wud with Prismacolor color pencils and the shading done with Prismacolor markers. The whole thing is on 9" square paper.

This zendala personally makes me happy and I am so proud of it. I hope it makes you happy as well. I have set this image up on zazzle to be available on a variety of products. It isn't quite available at this time but it should be by this time tomorrow. You can check them out here.